


lab revelations

by sapphirestark



Series: peter parker's work-life-balance: how to manage school, an internship, and being a superhero [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Identity Reveal, Irondad, Light Angst, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Rated Teen for some swearing, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, bruce meets peter and witnesses tony being a Dad (tm), but like super light angst don't worry, spiderson, tony finds out about the building collapsing on peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 12:32:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18739093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphirestark/pseuds/sapphirestark
Summary: “Ten tons?” Bruce set down his beaker and turned to give Tony his full attention.“Crazy shit, right? Doesn’t look it, and yet...” Tony shrugged, setting the magnifying glass down and stretching his back.“How - how do you know that? How did you test it?”Tony chuckled lightly. “I didn’t test it, Bruce. This isn’t gym class.”Bruce stared at him. “Tony, it’s not really that I think he’s lying. But have you never wondered just how Peter knows,specifically, that he’s able to lift ten tons of weight?”





	lab revelations

**Author's Note:**

> written for an anonymous tumblr prompt: _hey! i was wondering if you'd consider writing sth angsty (w. a happy end ofc) about tony finding out about peter having been almost crushed by a building in homecoming? like either peter has claustrophobia or sth bc of it or ned accidentally mentions sth or idk, and tony feels guilty bc he took the suit from peter beforehand and he thus wasn't as protected as he could have been and them having a nice father/son moment about it all. and thanks, whether you end up writing this or not :D_
> 
> i wrote this up at 2 in the morning but i actually quite like it so here we are!

“So that’s your kid, huh? He’s nice,” Bruce said, which was a vast understatement to how much he already liked the kid just ten minutes after meeting him. The kid was polite, smart, and kind-hearted - and the fact hat Peter had spent a good portion of those ten minutes enthusiastically firing questions about Bruce’s scientific work at him may have also played a part.

“He’s not - well, he’s kind of my kid, yes. It’s complicated.” Tony stared at the Iron Man gauntlet on the work table in front of him as if it could give him all the answers to life’s questions.

“Reminds me of Spider-Man, you know,” Bruce said casually. He was pretty sure he was dead-on with that assumption, but he still wanted to gauge Tony’s reaction. Tony just dropped his glasses on the table and rolled his eyes.

“You’re too smart for your own good, Banner.”

Bruce grinned crookedly. “PhDs’ gotta pay off somehow.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Tony sighed. “Yeah, he’s Spider-Man. Been doing it for years, already before I ever knew him - apparently some rogue radioactive spider bit him, and now he’s enhanced and running around Queens chasing after muggers and cats and whatnot. Reckless and without any sense of self-preservation, but don’t bring it up or he’ll talk about responsibility and hold up the moral high ground and everything.” Tony’s tone was way too fond to convince Bruce that he was actually annoyed.

“Sounds like someone else I know.” Bruce looked up and met Tony’s eyes, smirking slightly. “Maybe minus the moral high ground,” Bruce added. Tony huffed, but Bruce could see the amusement in his eyes.

“I guess you’re not wrong.”

They could’ve dropped the topic here, just working in silence until Peter returned from his shower and his homework, but Bruce’s scientific curiosity got the better of him. “So he’s enhanced? What can he do?”

Without looking up from the 3D hologram blueprints of the gauntlet Friday had pulled up, Tony replied: “Pretty weird stuff, but it comes in handy. He can stick to almost any surface. Almost gave me an aneurysm when I saw him walking on the ceiling the first time.” Tony chuckled a bit to himself. “Super senses, hearing, sight, the whole shebang. Plus what we call his Spider-sense, for lack of a better word - he can sense danger before it’s there. You could fire bullets at him while he’s blindfolded and he’d dodge them all.”

Bruce stared at his friend in disbelief - that was a superpower if he’d ever heard one. Tony met his incredulous look and laughed. “Yeah, it’s freaky to watch - and I still haven’t figured out how it works, so it’s a bit of a sore spot for the scientist in me.” Tony swiped away some holograms.

“He also has an enhanced metabolism, which means he eats for three and we had to use a variant of Cap’s medicine on him whenever he needs it. It’s really mostly anaesthetics for when he gets into trouble though, his immune system also got a spider boost so he rarely gets sick. - Oh, and enhanced speed and strength, too.” Tony turned back to his gauntlet, working on a nano-circuit under a magnifying glass.

Bruce let out a low whistle. That was quite the list of powers. “Strength too, you say? Like Steve?”

Tony scoffed while screwing a tiny screw into place. “Probably more than even him. He told me he can lift more than ten tons.” He bent forward over his new gauntlet, inspecting the wiring under a magnifying glass and completely missing Bruce’s flabbergasted expression.

“Ten tons?” Bruce set down his beaker and turned to give Tony his full attention.

“Crazy shit, right? Doesn’t look it, and yet...” Tony shrugged, setting the magnifying glass down and stretching his back.

“Pretty crazy, yeah. But Tony -” Tony looked up at hearing Bruce’s thinly veiled concern in his tone of voice.

“How - how do you know that? How did you test it?”

Tony chuckled lightly. “I didn’t test it, Bruce. This isn’t gym class.”

Bruce stared at him. “Tony, it’s not really that I think he’s lying. But have you never wondered just how Peter knows, _specifically_ , that he’s able to lift ten tons of weight?”

The penny dropped and Tony sat up faster than he’d thought he ever could in his age. He felt his already strained back crack but chose to ignore it.

“Friday, tell Peter to come down here immediately, there are a few questions we need to discuss.” His voice was laced in urgency, and Bruce hurried to backtrack.

“Tony, I mean, I wasn’t saying he did anything illegal - maybe he figured out how to convert spider strength to human strength, or maybe there’s a virtual way to analyse his proportional muscle and bone density -”

“A computer analysis that I - and Friday - don’t know about?” Tony asked sarcastically. “Yeah, somehow I don’t find that plausible.”

“Maybe he asked the Wakandan princess? You said they talk, right?” Bruce offered. He realised he’d spoken to Peter for less than fifteen minutes and yet he was up in arms defending him. Perhaps Tony’s drastic change in demeanour over the recent years wasn’t quite as unlikely as it had seemed - at least not if Peter had been involved for the better part of it.

“Yeah, they talk. Introducing them was either a stroke of genius or the biggest mistake T’Challa and I ever made. Yet to be determined.” Tony was still on edge, glancing at the cloud elevator doors every few seconds as if otherwise he’d miss Peter’s arrival.

“So, didn’t you say she was a genius kid too? Maybe she helped him with this. Somehow.”

Tony sighed, dragging his hands across his face.

“He told me about the strength thing way before they were introduced. There’s no way Shuri had any say in it.”

“Sir, Mr Parker will be arriving any second.” Friday announced.

Tony jumped up, facing the elevator with a worried expression. The doors opened to Peter Parker dripping water onto the tiled floor of the lab, still wet from a shower he must have had just taken, while ruffling his curly hair with a towel.

“Mr Stark, what’s so urgent?” He asked, half worried and half curious. He looked ready for anything from a battle to a scientific experiment, and Bruce understood why he and Tony got along so well. Peter was what Tony could have been with a loving childhood. They were so alike, and yet neither of them seemed to fully realise it.

Bruce debated whether he should leave, but decided against it. This would either be a scientific breakthrough in the research of mutants and enhanced individuals (if Peter really had found a way to measure his strength effectively), or a display of Tony Stark in his new role as a parent, neither of which Bruce wanted to miss. He settled down at his lab table, beakers in a safe distance, and kept silent other than waving hello to Peter.

“Pete, remember how you told me you could lift ten tons of weight?” Tony crossed his arms, staring Peter down but holding himself back from showing too much worry - in the end, maybe there was no issue at all. The kid, realising there was no life-or-death matter at hand, relaxed and sat down at Tony’s lab table, still trying to dry his hair off.

“Uh, yeah. Like, a couple months ago, wasn’t it?”

Tony grabbed the towel from Peter and pushed the chair around so Peter now faced Bruce, who didn’t see the point in pretending he wasn’t listening and just smiled tentatively. Tony started drying Peter’s hair off, engulfing the kid’s head almost completely in the fluffy white towel while gently treading through his curls. Neither of them acknowledged the action, but Bruce had an inner field day and hoped to every entity in the universe that Friday was recording this somehow. (She was, courtesy of Pepper’s orders to always record Tony being a dad.)

“Exactly, kid. So I was just wondering, how did you come up with that number?” Concern laced his voice but he tried to mask it with sarcasm. Bruce was sure Peter saw right through it. The kid had sat up a bit straighter, flushing slightly.

“Um, I don’t - I don’t know. I just figured it was true.” Peter shrugged.

“You just figured, huh?” Tony dropped the towel into Peter’s arms and took a few steps to the right.

“Yeah - yes.” Peter cleared his voice. Even Bruce knew the kid was lying, and he dreaded to find out why.

“See, kid, somehow I don’t believe that.” Tony sat down on the lab chair next to Peter, his face in his hands. “Pete, just be straight with me here. Whatever it is, it’s done now, but if you don’t tell me it’ll be on my mind forever and I’ll probably go grey before next Wednesday. So just -” He sighed. “The options for this are either that you did something embarrassing, dangerous, or illegal, or any combination of those. Just - make it quick and tell me.”

Peter wrung his hands a bit, looking over to Bruce with doubt in his eyes.

“Uh, do you - do you want me to leave?” Bruce asked, not wanting to intrude. He made to get up, but Peter quickly interrupted him.

“No, no, Dr Banner, it’s fine - actually, maybe you can try and find out more about my abilities, like, real scientifically backed-up stuff. I mean, if you want. I know most things just through trying it out, and it’s probably not always the, uh, best option.” He looked down, avoiding Tony’s eyes.

“Are you telling me that to find out your bench weight you just decided to _try to lift ten tons_?” Tony stared at Peter helplessly, then looking at Bruce as if he could give him any advice on how to handle reckless superhuman teenagers.

Peter winced. “I mean, sort of? I didn’t _want_ to try, exactly. It was kind of an, either-these-ten-tons-crush-you-or-you-lift-them-situation,” he said, so quickly that Bruce did a double take. Did he really just say -?

“ _Crush you?_ ” Tony pretty much shrieked. Peter nodded, decidedly staring at the unfinished Iron Man gauntlet in front of him.

“Peter - and I can’t believe I’m asking this - _when did ten tons almost crush you?_ ” Tony sat back down, all energy draining from him. Bruce understood what he had meant with the grey hairs, if these kinds of conversation topics were normal with Peter.

“Uh, well, remember the vulture? I followed him to his warehouse and he flew around and destroyed the support beams, so the building kind of - fell on me, I guess? So I lifted it.”

Silence followed that casual statement. After a few seconds, Peter gave up on avoiding Tony’s gaze and looked up at his mentor, searching for a clue about how he’d react. Tony just sat there, with an empty look on his face. Bruce swore he saw a tear glistening in his friend’s eye.

“Peter, why didn’t you call anyone for help?” Bruce said quietly, meeting Peter’s eyes which watered increasingly. “The police? Your aunt? Or - or Tony?”

Peter seemed to shrink in his chair, insecurely looking back and forth between Bruce, Tony, and the gauntlet that he’d subconsciously started to fiddle with.

“Uh, that - I didn’t really have that option. At the time.” He glanced at Tony, who looked paler and paler by the second.

“Why not?” Bruce asked, confused. He knew Tony wouldn’t let Peter go out and fight crime without any means to contact help. “Did that vulture guy destroy the electronics, or something?” Peter just shook his head silently, looking down at the gauntlet.

A heavy silence ensued.

“I took your suit.” Bruce’s head snapped up to look at his friend, who seemed in an internal battle with himself - one that he was evidently losing.

“Mr Stark, it’s -” - “No, it’s not fine! _Fuck_ -” Tony stood up, breathing heavily. “I took your suit! Your only means of protection, and then you got into that stupid battle about my stupid fucking airplane -”

The more aggravated Tony became, the quieter Peter was, placing a placating hand on his mentor’s arm. Tony immediately stopped pacing and focused on his kid, aching to erase the worried expression on Peter’s face.

When Peter spoke, his voice was placating, but determined. “Mr Stark. I made my own choices. You were right to take the suit, I didn’t deserve it -” – “You deserve the world, kid.” Tony’s voice broke. “Don’t ever forget that.” Peter sniffed and immediately hid his face in Tony’s shirt. Tony wrapped his arms around his kid, breathing deeply to limit his tears to a minimum, and to maybe calm Peter - as well as himself - down again.

“Just - promise me you’ll always call me. I don’t care what it is, a paper cut or homesickness or nightmares - just, call me. Okay?” Tony spoke softly into Peter’s crook of the neck, and Peter nodded slightly.

“I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked it! this fits well into my series so i'll put it in there too. feedback is always appreciated! also, find me on tumblr so we can cry about ffh together: sapphirestark.tumblr.com :)


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